The City of Portage la Prairie council met today with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities representatives in a very productive meeting. That's from Portage la Prairie Mayor Irvine Ferris. Ferris outlines the benefits of AMM.

"AMM does some very good advocacy group work on on our behalf. Certainly when we've got questions they often help us out with questions we have about other levels of government. And the discussion ranged everything from infrastructure, downloading to recreational services, protection services, and to school taxes. A whole range of subjects."

Ferris outlines discussions surrounding Portage's concerns.

"A lot of discussion on infrastructure, in particular the nutrient removal program. They were bringing us up to date on some of the changes we saw in the recent federal budget, and getting a few more details. We do not have a lot of details on this. We did see some improvements. So, certainly AMM's viewpoint is fairly optimistic that the partnership will improve."

He lists the benefits of our City meeting with the AMM.

"Very, very important, because obviously there's a lot of the advocacy work we could not do on our own with the resources we have. So, by uniting with other cities and certainly other municipalities, that gives us a bigger voice with the provincial and the federal governments. So, it's a huge help to Portage."

AMM president Chris Goertzen shares the purpose of meeting with the city.

"AMM does visits across Manitoba to all our municipalities. We want to hear first of all from them -- the challenges that they're facing. And we also want to really see if we can help them achieve the goals they have for their communities. Today we heard very clearly about the challenges Portage is facing, and the good things that are are happening in Portage as well. We know that the water treatment is an important part of what the council's planning. So, we heard about that project today, and we obviously want to see that come to fruition in the future."

He compares the needs of Portage with other municipalities.

"Infrastructure is a major challenge across the province. For Portage it's clearly that water treatment and other parts of hard infrastructure are important. For other communities it's recreation facilities. And for still others it's basic water treatment. In the end it's infrastructure across the board. Municipalities have 60% of the public infrastructure, but yet we only have eight cents on every tax dollar that comes in."

Goertzen says infrastructure funding is highlighted by all parties during this next election.

"We're encouraged to hear that from all parties. We need to have partners with the provincial government when it comes to municipalities. We have a big task to fulfil, and we want to make our communities better, and we want to be partner with the next government."